With the expected departure of Marcell Ozuna in free agency, the Atlanta Braves are inevitably going to have to pivot their designated hitter plans.

For the moment, the most likely option remains that Drake Baldwin and Sean Murphy will get the bulk of the DH reps assuming Murphy recovers well from surgery with other lineup regulars probably getting cameo appearances as well. However, another option exists this offseason that could certainly upset the apple cart and infuriate Phillies fans along the way.

Generally speaking, paying big money for a designated hitter only bat is not a good idea. Doing so more often than not creates lineup inflexibility that can only be justified unless the bat in question is top tier as was the case with Ozuna unless his production cratered in 2025.

However, there is one DH free agent that would be worth the flexibility trade-off in Kyle Schwarber who was making a run at NL MVP until late in the season.

While Atlanta signing him seems extremely unlikely, Bleacher Report’s Joel Reuter seems to think that Schwarber and the Braves are a good fit together.

Bleacher Report seems to think the Braves and Kyle Schwarber could be a good match, but there are some problems

In fairness to Reuter, the dots are pretty easy to connect here. The Braves want to compete at a high level, they are losing their full-time DH, and Schwarber is easily the best option available on the open market.

While having a guy who has averaged almost 47 home runs a season for the last four years would be nice, there are some problems with this plan.

Ignoring for the moment that the Braves already have a pretty easy DH solution on their roster right now in Baldwin/Murphy, they have other priorities that they need to attend to first with their somewhat limited resources.

They still need to figure out shortstop which is a premium position and Alex Anthopoulos has already said that adding pitching depth is going to be a top priority this offseason.

Is it fun to think about taking the Phillies’ best hitter and slotting him into the Braves’ lineup? Of course it is! However, the reality is he is probably going to be too expensive for Atlanta, creates lineup/roster issues that they probably don’t think would be worth it, and would hurt their ability to address actual holes on their roster.

There are good reasons why B/R only had the Braves as the #8 option for Schwarber this offseason, although it is a fun idea to daydream about if you ignore the details.